NOW is a long story. I didn’t know exactly where to begin. Or when. So, I thought I might begin at the beginning, which makes sense. But then I thought, given the subject, I might start with the present and reflect back. However, I’m also fascinated with the future. Thriller novelist, the late Robert Ludlum, began writing his books with the last chapter. This way he had a bead on where the story might go. From the Vajrayana Buddhist point of view, the past, present and future are happening at once, around us, in each moment. Perhaps being here now is knowing what came before, where we are and where we are heading. “Now” is not sedentary. Trungpa Rinpoche called this larger space of time, nowness. Nowness is not a solid thing. Nowness is an ever evolving experience.
One of the best things I have ever done was to look up at the sky. This simple act brings a keen perspective to our ground eye view whenever it happens. However, looking up in a place without light pollution, such as the mountains or the desert, can be quite profound. Millions of billions of stars exploding across the sky in an orgasmic display of complex, creative consciousness. And the deeper we look, the more we see. Stars behind stars behind stars. Though we are not always aware of what we are seeing, the course of all history is mapped out above us. We are peering into the secrets of time from our little ledge of now. The closest natural light we see is the reflective light of the moon which happened just over a second ago. The light of the sun happened 8 minutes ago. Beyond that many of the stars we’ll see tonight are so very far away that the light we’ll be seeing happened a long time ago. As we look up in wonder, we are seeing the past, stars as they were before we were born, and in most cases, before humanity was born. And if we look deep deep within the recesses of universal time, we’ll see stars that predate all life on this planet. The James Webb telescope is beginning to uncover galaxies that may have existed right after the birth of time and space. So the very beginning of our story is actually happening now. In fact, the entire history of our universe is happening right now in the sky above us.
How worlds were created, exist, and die – Brahma, Krishna and Vishnu, from the Indian mythology – are scripted in the patterns of time and space in the universe. The Vajrayana Buddhist Tradition of Tibet suggests that concepts of past, present and future are simply linear conceptual constructs. And while no one has been able to see evidence of future occurrences it seems the seeds of what’s to come are planted in each moment. There are those who are able to feel past the linear and understand the future, by understanding the patterns of the past and the present. The I Ching states that those who know the patterns of time and space will rule their work with dignity and grace. Seeing into the future seems to be one of the firewalls that is existent in the universe. Travel into the future, the absolute limit of speed locked in at the speed of light are some of the currently held laws of the universe. Yet, maybe these laws simply delineate the limits of our understanding. As our mind evolves, so does our understanding. When we climb a mountain the view changes as we ascend. Yet, humans are fond of identifying with what we’ve already seen. We embrace our limitations. I suppose shackles offer comfort.
Our conceptual mind can organize and explain the creative non-conceptual experience of the universe. But it is only a map. The map is not the destination. The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. Nowness is happening now, but it is comprised of all time. Nowness is as ever-evolving as is the universe of time and space. Even if we could define the universe right now our understanding would change as time leads into space. The nature of the universe is expansive. The nature of concepts are reductive. Concepts are limitations that express how far our understanding has come. But the universe is more vast than we can understand. The universe is not linear and it doesn’t exist in a way that our conceptual mind understands. So, throughout time humans have used mathematics, physics, and all kinds of theoretical principles to begin to understand what is actually there. Mystics and shamans approach it from an intuitive point of view. Ancient humans created stories of what they saw in the sky. Those stories described the pre-history of their culture. Judaism, Greek, Roman, Indian and many other cultures believed in a time that astral beings existed physically on earth. As two legged bipedal humans came to prominence these beings, be they mythical or historical, were placed in the sky. When the ancient Greeks looked to the sky they were able to see a map of their past, as well as a navigational tool for the present.
The stars were describing the birth of these cultures from the very beginning 
time and space and offering a script of how they saw themselves. If the gods and goddesses depicted in the sky were not corporeal then perhaps they represented energies common to all beings. Debating the existence of gods and goddesses is missing the point. Humans were trying to describe something from their ancient history in the designated patterns in the sky. Orion the hunter, Taurus the bull, the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper were ways to explain what and who they were. And maybe these pictures also explain who we are now. And perhaps what we are to become. It’s possible that the climate difficulties we’re facing on Earth will force us to find other alternatives. Perhaps we are being urged by the spirit of the universe to move psychologically, conceptually, socially and technologically toward the sky.
It’s possible that the climate difficulties we’re facing on Earth will force us to find alternatives in distant parts of the cosmos. Perhaps we are being urged by the spirit of the universe to move psychologically, conceptually, socially and technologically toward the sky. Perhaps our suffering blue planet is humanity’s incubator. Maybe our cocoon is readying us to ascend. Perhaps we will sprout wings and become like the sky beings of space. Maybe this is our legacy. However, a more pessimistic reading would be that we’re quickly approaching our own doom because we simply – and despite copious warnings – simply cannot break the habits to which we are addicted. Yet, looking to the sky, we see that death and birth are symbiotic and necessary. And if the great spirit of the universe is heeding us at all, why are we more important than the bugs we kill walking on the street? Are we more important than the trees we cut for our lawns, or the deer we poison to spare our roses, or the cows or chickens or all life we deem expendable so that our life is more comfortable?
Some people look to the grandness of the sky and see themselves as a god. Some people look to the sky and in comparison feel they are nothing at all. The Buddha taught that from the latter perspective we can offer great love, kindness and healing to the world. From the vantage of serving the universe without centering on our-selves, we are open to understanding the greater patterns of things.
Thus with that panoramic awareness we become “a Chakravartin” a holder of the wheel of time. When we offer up our petty struggles of existence, which are killing each other and strangling our planet, we can instead open up to connection with all life.
(The pictures above are of Tibetan Prayer Flags marking the center of a spiritual mandala, a rendering of the earliest galaxies taken from the James Webb telescope, and a thangka of Guru Rinpoche Lord Padmasambhava considered the chakravartin of their age.)